What! You say you have never heard of Melville Weston Fuller?
Don't be embarrassed by your lack of knowledge of history. Historians say he was
the most obscure Chief Justice ever to preside over the court.
He was born in Augusta, Maine in 1833, then attended Bowdoin
College and on to Harvard Law School. In backwoods America he became the first
Chief Justice with a strong college education.
Also, as another footnote to history, he was the only Chief
Justice to come from Maine.
Melville practiced law in Chicago, became involved in
politics as a staunch Democrat. He ran Stephen Douglas' campaign against Abraham
Lincoln. At Douglas' funeral he gave a brilliant oration.
While in Chicago he would cover a legislative session for the
Augusta Age. At the same time, James G. Blaine was a correspondent for the
Kennebec Journal. Years later they would renew their friendship in Washington
DC, with Melville as Chief Justice and Blaine as Secretary of State.
He did not specialize in law, but practiced in all areas.
However, he almost never took divorce or criminal cases.
Melville developed a national reputation in politics, which
would eventually catapult him to Chief Justice by President Cleveland in 1888.
"…Mr. Fuller hesitated before accepting it."
Melville would then swear in Cleveland for his second term.
One of the reasons for his appointment was "…the catholicity of his law
practice…" ("Catholicity" has a duel meaning. It means a good Catholic but also
means a broadness of taste, sympathetic, understanding, etc."; liberality,
universality. ("Catholic" is out as he was Episcopalian.)
On the Supreme Court he believed in a strict interpretation
of the Constitution: To the delight of our cousins today, he found the income
tax to be unconstitutional. A racist, he handed down the famous decision in
Plessy v. Ferguson. This decision supported the policy of segregation in public
accommodations as long as they were "separate but equal." The blacks found the
interpretation to give too much "separate" and not enough "equal."
Cousin Melville enjoyed handing down decisions in favor of
big corporations, thus weakening the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Such was his prestige that he was appointed a member of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague Tribunal).
Apparently a sociable fellow, he had each justice greet and
shake hands with every other justice before beginning court. This started a
tradition that carries down to this day.
He was one of the most efficient and effective chief justices
in the courts' history.
His first wife was Calista O. Reynolds. She bore him two
children and died young. His second wife was Mary Ellen Coolbaugh. All total,
there would be eight daughters and one son. Fuller died in 1910, after serving
on the court for 22 years.
One of the daughters married Hugh Campbell Wallace; first,
middle, and last are all our families' historic names.
Hugh was appointed Ambassador to France in 1912 by Woodrow
Wilson.
Strangely, I cannot find much about his ambassadorship, which
would have placed him in France during the First World War.
I have not yet come to the crux of the story. It is the
custom that at the beginning of each new session of the Supreme Court that an
official photo is taken of all the justices sitting together in robed majesty.
This photo shows only five members, with the four to the right cut out of the
picture.

Sitting to the right, looking like a sage, is
Melville Weston Fuller. Now look to the man standing at the left. For on Cousin
Melville's court, under his very command, served Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
would become the most famous Associate Justice in the courts' history. Oliver
Wendell Holmes is still famous to this day, and history has all but forgotten
Cousin Melville...what's-his-name.

First 8 Chief Justices of the US Supreme Court

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